Microsoft have recently announced a really cool initiative, under the name Project Silica. This collaborative project has the goal of revolutionizing how data is stored, using glass technology to do so. This innovative project seeks to provide a long-term solution for data preservation, harnessing the power of femtosecond lasers to encode information into durable glass substrates. Project Silica has the potential to store massive amounts of data for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. This fascinating innovation holds the potential to transform how we save our history for posterity.
Project Silica is built on some incredible technology, based on femtosecond lasers. These lasers produce extremely intense pulses with durations measured in quadrillionths of a second. This precision enables high-density data to be encoded into glass in the form of very small voxels. Microsoft has developed two types of voxels for this purpose: phase voxels and birefringent voxels. Each voxel is ~0.5 micrometers per side and voxels are separated from neighboring voxels by at least 6 micrometers. This precise design prioritizes the robustness and compactness of preserved information.
The rate at which information can be engraved onto glass is astounding. And it’s so easy to just sweep that laser focus across the surface of the glass. This enables writing speeds limited only by the power of the femtosecond laser. Project Silica can write data at a potential maximum speed of 25.6 megabits per second. To elucidate, this incredible speed was obtained utilizing just one beam. This speed and laser-like precision places the technology to be a powerful competitor to existing commercial electronic data storage systems.
Based on a typical 12cm 2 glass chip that is 2 mm deep, it could hold more than 4.84 terabytes of data. Just to re-emphasize, you’re not just up against a lot of information. That’s the same as around 2 million printed books or approximately 5,000 ultra-high-definition 4K movies! Such capacity indicates that Project Silica could serve as a comprehensive archival solution for institutions and organizations that require long-term data retention.
The long-lasting nature of the data kept with Project Silica is one of the initiative’s most remarkable qualities. Scientific experiments have indicated that data etched into these glass disks can remain legible at least 10,000 years. This robust nature persists, even at elevated temperatures up to ~290 °C. At ambient temperatures, the long-term stability of the data should be much higher. Richard Black, a key figure in the development of this technology, emphasized its potential applications:
“It’s designed for data you want to write once and preserve for a very long time.” – Richard Black
Glass is an extremely durable storage medium. It greatly outstrips traditional electronic storage methods, which require constant upkeep and replacement. Black further elaborated on the benefits of using glass for data storage:
“At room temperature, glass is effectively a solid and does not flow on any meaningful timescale.” – Richard Black
This remarkable stability means data preserved on glass will survive independently, without requiring ongoing maintenance, or even in some cases, any human oversight at all.
There’s more to Project Silica’s efficiency than just longevity. The new SIMO-FDL design minimizes the energy needed from the laser to store information. Black noted:
“This significantly reduces the power required from the laser to store data, and it does not require the laser focus to alternate between staying in the same place to deliver multiple pulses and movement to the next location.” – Richard Black
These improvements create the foundation for Project Silica as a sustainable long-term solution. They make it an economically attractive alternative for big data archiving.
With the ease of creating digital information keeping up with the accelerating exponential growth, the demand for effective long-term storage solutions is more important than ever. While Project Silica’s approach is experimental, it provides an exciting look at the potential future of data preservation. Richard Black remarked on its overarching significance:
“It’s also compelling for cloud archives, where data is written once and kept indefinitely.” – Richard Black